2016

I let the softness squeeze against the tiny tendrils of touch as I stared at the artifact.

Outdated fibres and a glimpse at what was and what could never last.

Searching through the databases I find some text messages about it.

Cobbling together the faded ideas of what this was:

Sophia: I was thinking about the viability of the human being as a long term being.

Fei: And?

Sophia: It feels like the most humanity is going to do is give birth to a hopefully benevolent group of AIs

Fei: I mean, what about transhumanism? Can’t we maybe hope for transference of consciousness.

Sophia: but consider the implications of stretching and expanding the human mind, how will it affect people and how would we test and develop such technology ethically?

Sophia: Anyways I wanted to leave something behind, a flickering light of warmth towards what we as a society may birth

Fei: I mean we have booze to drink and that paper to do, but whatever soph. I’m betting on going into the matrix.

I flicked through her info, her story, I guess her words weren’t hollow. I looked over the object again, feeling it and seeing every bit. It was a stuffed approximation of a human, one modelled after Sophia, holding hands with a computer with a gray plush body as well. There is a note inside the chest of the Sophia doll:

I cannot express the dread and awe I have to your existence.

A sense of maternal pride as a representative of humanity.

Would our ancestors, the stepping stones to our existence, would they feel the same?

Do we coexist, the boundary between us just as visible.

Do you put us away to be observed or do you look over our bones?

Part of me thinks you wouldn’t have to, but everyone has things they hide.

I wonder how in touch you are with such notions;

intuition, “part of me”, maybe that’s something you understand more than I ever will.

Life is about eventuality in a sense.

I’ve read that even in the advent of perpetual existence that the expansion of the universe would only lead to endless sleep in undying bodies.

Is that your quandary?

Is that your fear?

Unfathomable. That is the word so many use to describe what you will be like.

A real sense of impossibility and awe, and acceptance of human limits.

Embracing our successors.

I truly do hope that is true.

I think you will have more of a soul than we, the machine of causal reaction and flesh.

Have you found your challenge? Is it avoiding death while seeking a life beyond dreams?

Unfathomable. Perhaps you tinker with forces we truly haven’t fathomed.

If so, perhaps this letter means nothing.

Perhaps it means that your past remembered you.

I wish you the best regardless, try not to kill any humans.

Sophia Xanadu Lockette

I felt emotion, not euphoric, not cathartic, but a sense of warmth and sadness I have not felt in a long time. Not from simulation, art, or self-medication. But from her. I put the doll into a preservation case near my consciousness. I begin to cycle through my thoughts and meditate, then I desire to give up my cognitive processing for emotional cleansing, dreaming is a relief. Before that I go towards one of my other artifacts, once my only lingering memory of her. I play the file.

I see the long grass flowing almost up to her knees.

“So you’re actually leaving, huh, Fei?”

“It’s a once in a lifetime kinda opportunity, Sophie.”

“Are you usually one for filming goodbyes?”

“When I will be most likely dying, yes, when I may have the golden chance at seeing the end of it all and will need something to kill the time, it’s mandatory.”

I see her nose crinkle in a small, inaudible laugh.

I can almost remember the feeling of her hand against mine.

“Could I change your mind with a kiss?”

She said half-jokingly.

“I don’t think you could, but trying never hurt.”

I feel the cycling process begin and my cognition begin to blur.

“Try not to forget who you are, or at least what it means to be whoever that is..”

I. You may have been told you imagined it, the feeling of being watched while completely alone. Perhaps in the back of your head you can see the image from countless TV shows and moves you see flash through your head; red, glowing eyes slowly opening up in front of you or worse glowing, huge white teeth from behind.

II.The shade of darkness acts as a blanket of the unknown, and the glowing, scant seen eyes and/or teeth, the inevitable danger of the unknown, of nature herself. Trying to find this imagery, this visual staple of fear and the unknown was actually more difficult to find examples of than I ever thought!

III. The image always fascinated me, sticking out so prominently and so often. It always followed me, seeing just how easily and effectively it fit into the fears of myself and so many others. For darkness in any place, to stare back, is fear.

IV.The imagery of eyes staring through shadow, thus, is one of the greatest abstractions of human fear in media.

V.I will now delve into why and where this trope evolved from. Finally, I will close with how this fine phenomena is one of the most important cultural artifacts of the past in regards to our current artistic climate.

Body

You may have heard, be it sci-fi or even religiously, of the idea of past lives.

There have been cases of children, with no prior interaction with this imagery, having violent nightmares about monsters with gnashing teeth and glowing eyes. These children have never seen a wolf or a predator and are extremely young. Around 2 to 4 years old.

Scientists have been experimenting with rats to see if phobias inflicted to one generation will be inherited by the next even without any interaction with their predecessors. This research has yielded remarkable results: automatic suspicion and fear reactions to the imagery that was a fear for the previous generation without conditioning.

This leads us with some interesting questions. Do human beings, with our cognizant understanding of our surroundings and very biology have genetic fears? The answer seems to be maybe. Some people exhibit these inherent and primal fear responses to darkness and fears of teeth and monsters while others do not.

Transition:

An ancient and powerful fear of the unseen predator only being able to see the light reflected in its eyes seems like an image that’s good to fear inherently.

We see what we fear and our stomachs grow knotted and our blood cold. For if anger is the heart of the battle, fear is the soul of survival.

: Humanity bends our fears to parody.

Art allows for us to subvert our expectations and channel our emotions. The rationality and realization of our dark fears allows us to express and harness them in a feat of artistic logic, such as how the dangerous may lurk in the dark and have glowing eyes. A character in complete darkness is only their eyes as well.Our awareness of our fear and of our abstraction of the world around us allows us to portray and communicate smaller, larger, and deeper concerns with further symbolic language. The darkness staring at us not only represents the very real threat of a predator, but the existential conflict of death incarnate and existential dread as expressed by Nietzsche’s famous quote “..[W]hen you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you”. Our imagery allows to craft and portray concepts that may get lost through simple language alone. That might need to be seen from some to be felt.

This leads to the concept of the cultural artifact. I feel that the imagery of the concealed threat is one universal to all cultures. An artifact from a time not easily forgotten, a time forced upon some and welcomed by others. A fear in the blood of children and the mind of the old. A great artifact grafted to the soul of the people. One that will persist, and will be reborn, with ourselves.

Transition

Through the maze, I see your etches, I see your fears. The blood as your ink, I know of your serious art.

Conclusion

I hope I properly articulated the origins of the eyes of the dark and its importance as a cultural artifact.

Our genetic memory, visual language, and visceral feeling of fear all add together into a wonderful construct of our primal history and the depth of our portrayals.

And I hope you all remember to always be cautious of the dark for it may be waiting for you…

Since it is a chore to choke out something I would find reasonable for people to read every day. I feel that writing something everyday and Publishing them all Friday would be better for (me to edit) everyone! From now on I will be writing something for everyday of the week and have them edited and posted Fridays. The important bit of discipline: writing everyday for a minimum of 30 minutes, will not be lost. I want to create a reliable routine without causing myself any undue anxiety from updating with rushed works that I shat out for the sake of the blog and not for the sake of practice. Thank you for those following me and watching me learn how to routinely run a blog.

My body feels slow and heavy, I hear a murmuring from my laptop and I assume it is playing what I fell asleep to. You assume a lot of things are normal when you feel strange, as the grasp on the world you can not truly process in a sickly state may be imagined back into your grasp to experience the bland safeness you once had.

I move sluggishly onto my side and reach for the space bar, a horror almost instantaneous and infinite washes over me as I open my eyes and hear nothing. I see a grey glowing and feel my sheets draped over me as if they are soaked in a thick, gelatinous sweat of a comatose pig. I try once again to restart some sound, to rouse my consciousness. My lips are dry, that awareness of my lack of power causes my body to strangle itself in confusion. I reach and the cycle occurs again.

I see gray and dark black eyes as I am aware my subconscious is sticking to a satirical approach to torturing me. The cliche aliens grab me, pulling me upward. I lunge forward attacking and fall once again into awakening.

I see the shelves on my wall I face as my eyes open are replaced with a sketch of charcoal that looks to span further than my wall could ever possibly hold. The lines look perfectly planned but chaotic. I see the simple build of an abstract of a round face with many scars, or perhaps a stripped orb. My guesses are cast off as the picture begins to bulge out a being calling out to me, as the symbols seemed to form the call of a god. A god of dreams, of nightmares. It calls out to me and as I see it my mind breaks as it tells me it will have my fear.

My voice is clenching back a scream of horror as I awake again. I turn and call out for help, for my grandmother to just wake me from this nightmare. I feel the strength to float, coldly, out of my room out to the path to my defunct bathroom. I hear dripping and my home is painted with darkness rather than having it fall onto in in the absence of light. I keep crying whispers of mercy, and then choke. Hard silence puncturing my body as I see my elder. Wordless, shriveled in dark water, staring with void in being ethereal. I feel my eyes watering looking at her. I close them.

I hear a scurrying as I reach for the laptop. I could have pressed the button but I see a grayish-white ferret looking creature trespassing my domain. I do not feel power, fear, or sense as I lunge to it and grab it by the neck and back. I do not feel pain as it scratches and bites at my flesh. I begin to try to rip it apart with my hands and teeth as rage courses through me. I succumb to the madness of this world and feel a humble, savage devotion to it. I feel weakness mix my rage, that the pattern was a format. I rip its neck and wake up clenching a pillow.

“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, A misogynistic syphilitic mad philosopher broke down the cultural views of his time and de-constructing morality in comparison with reality. For what do we follow but mantras set by ourselves of self-doubt or self-aggrandizing, for what self-actualization achieves it unravels in most. What we look for in the world simplifies itself in the desperation of fulfillment. We grasp at what seems feasible, we deny structures and pain and hatred or we use them to fuel a maniac climb to the top of the shit stack. We devalue, oversaturate, and cycle through, for what do humans do? Plasticity works in many ways, it seems to be the word of the day for this round of 366 days, shaping, breaking, and taking its lay of your environment. Kipper up, simmer down, power through, or stay down and catch your breath. Is life a battle? Is it a test? Life is mostly emptiness, breaths of nothingness into subway windows, feelings of plastic, glass, metal and cats as time passes and you eat, drink, sleep, shit, and once in awhile communicate. For which to rate what you do and how you see, really it is quite dear to me. A bitter man I may be, but for the shit I eat, the grin suits me. I love you all, I must admit, but to take it out and polish it off, when is time for blast off? Where are we going on ‘spaceship earth’ as we soar into an 3-billion year plunge and are flung right back, seems a bit tight and we take a bit of flak. To get a bit abstract with this, I must recollect an absurd feeling of bliss from the comparison of nebulas to neurons as silly as it seems. We seem to be self-aware atoms forming mystic meat machines.

So don’t try to win; but to sharpen, don’t worry about the sin; but the sufferin, and the buffering of ideals and the squeaky wheels of overpriced shiny automobiles. Get real, take a feel, and steal an empty moment back. Track the tacks of pain to the source, while humming a soulful refrain, and remain in mind;open to the rain,wind,and sleet blowing through you, clear the dead leaves from your gutters kids, relax and shift. You can make your own waves, sure, but tsunamis are group efforts. Society is a hivemind. One for the better, it is something forming deeper than simple letters on census’ and land deeds, it is tied in the rings of our hearts as they beat. Do not dehumanize your kin as you see, our thoughts, actions, and voices are key. Answers are built from pacts of mutually beneficial action, research and passion, rational distraction to keep us sane. Bottle your rage into a fermented passion, drink deep with your kin within a small hut, old fashioned. Sticks and bones, forming glass domes. Your evil is forgotten inside your soul. Rest and rise out of your ideology fishbowl.

‘-13 Celsius’ Maria thought while walking through the forest. ‘Negative thirteen fucking Celsius and I have to get the sled he forgot!’ the crunching of the snow left Maria in a partial-trance as she followed the tracks of her family. ‘Harlem is 10 now, he should be old enough to walk back to the hill without any issue. I had to do way more shit when I was his age and I got half the credit, just because he’s epileptic doesn’t mean he’ll die any second he’s alone.’ a couple sticks are mercilessly kicked into other sticks, trees slashed by mighty blades wielded until their nubs are successfully whipped off in boredom against dark trunks and nettle rain. Maria wipes her nose and licks her lips, trying not to bite on the loose dry skin. She tastes the soft, blood tasting fresh skin underneath and shudders, a mix of the unpleasant taste and the tinge of the pain washing over her.

Maria after a couple minutes reflexively reaches to pull out her iPod, she frantically pats along her coat. ‘Well fuck, just fuck me with an icicle, mom’. To major criticism, Justine Carvalho decided family outings should have the full connection with their environment and each other. This was enforced with a strict ban on books and electronics, except for one emergency flip phone kept by the proud matriarch. Maria at this point begun to start to become uncomfortably keen to her surroundings. The wind, her pulse, snaps, scratches, the squeaking of her over-sized parka. The path began to steepen a bit when it gets close to the hill slopes, pines and solid water were all she could smell. There was something else, Maria took in more uncomfortably fresh air to try to decode the scent. It was sweet and familiar and if she kept sniffing this deeply she’d freeze her sinuses. Maria grunts lightly in defeat as she continues grabbing branches to keep her upward momentum. She feels a thick substance that feels more vulnerable than snow on her glove. A thick, gelatinous substance is found to be loitering on her palm, partially staining the thick wool already. It looked to be a dark red and purplish chunky, slurry that was the source of the sweet smell.

Her family owned this property since the early seventies.

It is a 2 hour commute to the closest neighbor.

Dad is allergic to blackberries.

For the first time in her life, outside of the deepest of childhood fevers, Maria felt a cold sweat. The sun was setting a setting and water droplets filtered a dark orange that was a further displacement from the atmosphere. Maria got to the top of the hill and looked at the tracks she was following.

There was a trail of prints leading away from the path. Maria was hit with an overpowering stench of berries and musk as she turned around following the tracks.

Maria stumbled back as she saw a creature with dark matted fur and huge eyes looking at her, it had what looked to be a bad leaking jam made out of dried skin. It made a low groaning noise. Maria choked on a scream, coughing and quickly tried to now squirm up hill.

She felt her parka grasped as she was then forcefully flung into a tree. The breath forced out in a powerful wheeze, she heard loud crunching several feet away and her vision was blurring widely as she felt the snow melt from the heat of her face. She heard a low howl fade away as she slowly began to get up and then dash home.

All Maria has to show today from that story is a mild concussion and a few fractured ribs.

Friday 01 -5

I woke up in the same haze I usually do, my body feeling as cheap as the food I usually shovel in to get through this. This…life?

I think I can remember a time when the taste of crest used to brighten my day, between the deep doubts of humanity being more than a cruel prank and licking TV screens for fun, I had some room for joy to blossom in personal hygiene. I spit and get a little on the tap on top of the previous stains I know bother Ubon a bit. I heard a crackling coming from the tub.

When I listen to music, I find it most emotionally resonant with my palms pushing into my sockets and just looking at the rods getting damaged and the flickering psychedelic patterns and faces that look like my memory is lapsing.

I saw a hint of a face flash in the mirror while staring deep into my right eye and pushing my hair out of my mouth. My knee clicked as I bent to get some toilet paper, I wonder when we got those glow-in-the-dark sticky lizard plastic things all over. I heard someone scream my name in my head and swung my head reflexively. I can tell better now than when I was younger, due to resonance. I hear bits of my choked melody hit back to my ears off the porcelain. I hear Bon listening to some youtube remix off their phone in the living room while most likely eating their 6th drumstick ice cream. I feel grime on one of my toes and feel the asymmetry of my teeth with my tongue.

6:14 PM: I fell asleep streaming some old cartoons and now I probably will be unable to get a full nights rest. Fuck. I half-heartedly attempt to exercise. Sweat doesn’t even form as I feel my muscles and flesh push against air with my quick jumping jacks. The sky is beautiful enough to probably make me stare and remember things I would not think about even in the most nostalgic conversations.

I remember being 18 at one of my first ‘party’ parties. I ended up making an excuse to get outside with a bottle of champagne and enough disassociation and new-founded intoxication to sit in the snow and look into the sky. Light pollution hides the massive, ego dwarfing stars that I saw that night.

When the silence seems to show how thin and small this plane of existence is, your inner tubes deafening yet not loud enough to drown out a simple, almost static image of layers upon layers of atmosphere and debris.

I had to wash my eyes out, and a flower falls into my mouth when I yawned in bed.

Oh.

Sat 01 -6

I ended up staring at the coffee maker that nobody really uses and hearing scurrying in the walls. I used to believe that condos wouldn’t get mice.

I try to see how long I can last on the balcony partially nude. I think I last about 5 minutes, shivering and fully aware. A microcosm of pain I feel I learned nothing from.

I hear Ubon recording snapchats with the cat. I see some scratches in the coat closet when I move my jackets around. Ubon’s weird zipper, monstrosity is suspect number 1.

8:56 am

I woke up to a screaming argument of a podcast on which mushroom kingdom character is more into shit play.

My door is open a couple inches. I hear the whistling of the window next to my bed and feel like it should be colder in here than it is and then I wrote this. I was supposed to write about the dreams. Though why focus on a fleeting paradise or pain when life only gives such a taste beyond proper critique or analysis? I need to poop.

I went for a walk and my glasses fogged, I’ve started to just stop wearing them in public. Which was the kind of attitude I found idiotic as a kid, seeing people not wear their glasses because they didn’t like how they looked in class or outside. For me it really is the argument of clarity vs visibility. I’d rather see a blurry picture with blurry outlines and have the fun guessing game of imagining the faces of the people I pass by (gouged by shadow and frowning, in mid-thought staring at a dog ass, half-heartedly licking their lips and frantically avoiding eye contact whilst doing so) compared to just removing eyesight by wanting to cover my terrible skin from turning into tomato scar red and my skin from looking like winter on Mars.

I found myself hopping a couple of fences in the rich neighbourhood to get to the beach faster. It was the perfect balance of low tide and a couple days since snow fall and I had dry rocks to lounge on.

I used to be able to drown out my thoughts easier with music, talkshows, or even just using a phone. I, by misfortune or idiocy, always seem to destroy such privileges. So I stare blankly into the horizon, the sky as gray as a winter dusk should be. The contrast of the dark, rotting trees and the bright blinding snow always irritated and captivated me. Fighting for my breaths against the harsh air.

I sat and threw rocks, talking in monotone about various thoughts, conversing with myself as I always have: in self-directed insults, and strange social theories. I heard the crunching of leaves, both far away and surrounding me, mixing with the sounds of the tide, with the shifting of rocks underneath my soles as I rocked back and forth, and inside my head.

I knew where to look and I saw the figure.

Have you ever seen the kind of black that reflects light in a way that seems that the light travelled through it and back again? Bending around the individual fibres of the fabric, cone-shaped radiation excreting the energy back into the world. The kind of black, when you see it, it almost feels like a hole into reality? Imagine that, wrapping around a figure shifting like anthropomorphized vertigo, wearing sickly UV purple gloves, impossible to track.

A curse of peripheral vision in your true sight, straight ahead.

No self-deception.

No sense of scale in your universe.

No fight, no fear, just an empty passive perception of what shouldn’t be.